Fox & Friends hardly mentions Russian oligarch’s payments to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen

Fox News’ flagship morning show, Fox & Friends, breezed past new reports that a shell company used by President Donald Trump’s lawyer and business associate, Michael Cohen, to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels “received payments totaling more than $1 million from an American company linked to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration.”

Yesterday, following a tweet from Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenetti, The New York Times reported on financial records that show Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., received “payments last year of about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch.” Essential Consultants also received payments from various other major companies, including AT&T. CNN noted that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators have questioned Vekselberg, who is close to Vladimir Putin, as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

The potential scope of the corruption here is staggering.

Fox News has had relatively little coverage of these Cohen developments. It was briefly mentioned on Special Report, but the story was ignored through the network's prime-time lineup, and not again mentioned until Fox News at Night during the 11 p.m. hour, according to a SnapStream search.

Fox & Friends, which Trump has been known to watch frequently, briefly mentioned the news once throughout the three-hour show. The show spent more time discussing therapy goats:

Melania Trump’s approval ratings:

And a “controversy” about high school cheerleaders in New Jersey: